Product/Range/Distribution; Design boards.

These boards showcase all the outcomes I have created for the product, range and distribution section of the module and explain a little bit about them. 

YCN; My design boards.

These are the design boards i've created to showcase my personal contribution to the YCN collaborative competition brief. Each board has a short explination to explain the imagery included. 

Product/Range/Distribution; Re-written brief.

*Deliverables - all limited edition*

Coming to the end of the project I decided to re-write my brief again to see how everything had changed from the first time i've written it. Some of the outcomes seem to have changed but I put this down to the fact i've prioritised some elements over others and even though this is the case I still have a good range. The problem is a lot more defined on this brief because as i've gone through i've understood it better myself. The problem is also genuine because Little White Lies tends to be an art-house based film magazine so doesn't really cover the full target audience that it has the potential to. The considerations haven't really changed but because the idea has stayed the same, they didn't really need to. Although the brief overall seems quite simple I think it explains the idea well. I've also written a focusedtarget audience of 18+, the reason for this age is because some films tend to have their own age rating anyway and tend to be more suitable for this age group with the few exceptions. It seems like a safe target audience. The deliverables are limited edition as a one off way to gain interest. If this was to be successful it could mean using mainstream films more often throughout the magazine issues. 

I chose the top 12 films of 2011 as my topic because they were available online so were genuine top films and not just ones i'd picked out myself. 12 was the number chosen because there are 12 months in a year and each edition will be released each month throughout 2013. 

Product/Range/Distribution; Final crit.

This is what I took with me to the final crit. I hadn't got anywhere near as far as i'd hoped but felt everything I did have, I could get relevent feedback on that would still be useful.  

For the intial part of the crit we layed our work out on the table and then swapped with another table of whose work we'd never seen before. We had to crit the work based on first impression and what we thought of it. I thought this was a really good idea because it gave me an idea of whether or not the boards I have created so far were communicating well. It also let me know what other people thought of my idea and people seemed to really like it still. Some of the things written were already known by my usual crit group so i'd say this was the only downside.  

When we went back to our tables we then got into partners and did a crit on each others work based on how far people had got. Due to the fact I had some final pieces and all were eventually going to be pretty similar I could get the feedback I really wanted in terms of drawing style and layout etc. A lot of the feedback I was given was suggestions of things to try that may improve the work so this was really useful because again, it added to my development. The key comment for me during this crit was the fact some of the characters looked as though they were floating, I already felt this was something I needed to address and when we sat down and discussed this, the people who wrote it came up with some really good suggestions. The suggestion to vector my imagery was welcomed but I'd previously stated that I really wanted to steer clear of this because I wanted my illustrations to be unique and look more hand rendered so they are different to things that had done before, once I explained this to the group, they understood my reasoning.  

Once the crit was over I wrote another action plan stating what I would go and do to take me up to the module deadline. This should benefit me as it's basically my to-do list.

Product/Range/Distribution; Second crit.

For the second crit we had to write three questions we wanted to specifically know the answer to in order to help us move on. 

I found this crit to overall be really useful because my questions were answered and the answers were really relevent and helped me think more about my ideas. There was also some feedback that suggested ideas for me to try which would be potentially really good for my development. Overall the feedback was really positive considering I had planned on being a lot further on with my work at this stage.  

This is the action plan I wrote for the things I plan to do within the next week before the final crit.

Product/Range/Distribution; Concept boards.

After the first crit I was able to go away and design my concept boards because I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I could encorporate answers to the questions asked at the crit within these and make sure people knew exactly what my intentions were. These were also something I could refer back to as I was going through the design process because I was going to have a lot of final outcomes so could make sure i'm not going to miss anything. There is a possibility these boards may change as I go through ideas. 

Product/Range/Distribution; First crit.

The first crit was our concept crit and we got into groups so that we could explain our ideas and see what people thought and if there was any way we could improve upon it. At this stage I had my written brief and my rationale so I used these as best as I could to explain my ideas to my group. People saw the problem i'd come up with as being genuine which was really good because this is essentially what makes my project, a project. The feedback overall was really useful and got me to think about considerations I'd maybe just forgotten about or generally hadn't though about at all. A lot of the feedback was also advice on which direction to take ideas so this was really useful because essentially these people are my target audience. The fact they asked questions meant I could go away and design to answer these questions, again another really useful point given from this crit. Overall, a really useful crit that will certainly help me move forward and has proved my idea will work. 

Product/Range/Distribution; Re-written brief & rationale.

After the workshop we were asked to re-write our brief based on what we had learnt and whether our decisions had changed. My brief is still quite similar to the first but is worded better so the idea could be understood fully. The outcomes are more clarified at this stage too so it is clear exactly what I plan to do. We were also asked to fill in a rationale sheet based on the workshop as we'd essentially just written it. This has helped me understand whether I am getting the full potential out of my brief and have covered all areas.

Product/Range/Distribution; First brief.

Based on the four briefs that i've chosen as my favourites from various competitions I have written my own brief. I've taken elements from the CSS brief and also the D&AD but overall my brief is mostly heavily based on the D&AD brief because this is the one I could imagine myself enjoying and gave me most opportunity to explore the things I enjoy. The bit I did take from the CSS brief however, is the fact they'd like the designs to be illustrative and this is the direction I want my brief to take. I didn't want my brief to be exactly like the D&AD one so tried to put my own twist on it. The problem I discovered to write my brief is that Little White Lies' main focus is on art-house films therefor limiting their target audience to those with this interest. I want to open this magazine up to the larger potential audience that it could have by using mainstream cinema to do so. By creating a limited edition series this means that it would be a one off and if it were successful, the magazine could look at releasing issues that are more often based around mainstream cinema. The target audience as a whole is people who have an interest in film and the industry. This brief will probably be re-written at least three times during the module based on decisions I make and how they may change. 

YCN; Final design boards.

YCN; Final crit.

At this crit we had to lay out all the work we had so far for the brief and go around the table in three partners writing feedback for each collaborative group. The work we left was the three intial concept board ideas so we could get a little bit of feedback. Before we began the crit we had to come up with five questions we wanted feedback on in particular. A lot of our questions revolved around the exhibition proposal as this was the one thing holding our brief together in terms of concept. We wanted to make sure we were doing everything possible to make this a really good idea. We also had concerns about the legality of using the floorplans so wanted to know if this was ok. Once we'd given feedback to the other two partnerships we were given the opportunity to present our ideas and ask any questions about the feedback. All of our questions were answered on the sheets and were extended when we sat down to discuss feedback. As with the last crit a lot of the feedback was really positive but some of the suggestions for us to take the work further were very much welcomed as they were good ideas we could really work with. The one comment we really had to consider was the fact that instead of having other peoples work on our boards we should utilise this space and make sure each board contains our own work, fedrigoni will want to see as many ideas as possible in order to understand our concept. It was reccommended that at least one board contains a detailed description of exactly what our exhibition entails because when we presented and spoke about our ideas we communicated this really well and everyone really liked the ideas, but when they looked at the boards it didn't seem to communicate. 

After the crit we knew exactly what we had to do to make our concept even better. We had a better idea of things we would propose and things we would actually mock up and knew that once this was done we had to focus on creating our boards so that they represented our idea as clearly as possible with a lot of visuals. We used the action plans on the back of the sheets so we could manage our workload and work out what we had to do in the week or so we have left. This has been the most useful crit overall because it has really clarified our ideas and the feedback we were given was really useful and very well considered. 

YCN; Intial design boards.

These were the intial design boards that we came up with for our final crit. We had, the concept/problem, collaboration, and the exhibition because these were the elements we had secure at this stage. The concept board imagery was more for the purpose of the university module submission because tutors would need to know what the imaginative colour tool would look like but if we were to submit this design to YCN we would exchange these images for the logo we have created. We wanted to try and tailor the boards so they would fit both submissions. The collaboration with the ink company is also a main aspect of our brief because this makes the concept as it revolves around ink. Although the images are not our own, it shows and understanding of what can be done with ink in terms of design. The exhibition venue is a huge part too because without this there would be no exhibition and due to the fact we'd actually been able to get hold of the floor plans we could communicate these ideas properly. Each board inclues a small explination of what our ideas are/what we are trying to communicate through them. 

YCN; crit two.

This is the crit within which we presented our concept boards. Before we began this crit we had to come up with three specific things we wanted feedback on by asking questions. This was so that we could get the feedback we were really looking for and so that it would useful. The main question was just to do with whether we had a good concept and this was most important because this is the aspect that would shape our whole project. A lot of the aspects that were brought up in terms of the feedback were things that we had already covered but maybe we hadn't explained these whilst we were presenting our work but at least this shows we are covering all areas of our brief. Most of the feedback was quite positive and gave us pointers of where we can gather further research. Although answers to our questions can't be seen on the sheets, we did get the feedback we were looking for verbally through feedback discussion after the crit. The concept is suitable for the brief and could be really creative if we take it in the right direction. 

YCN; concept boards.

Once we began researching into the ideas we had we came up with some intial concept boards for our second crit that began to explore our ideas in more detail. On these boards we included, the problem/concept, comeptitors and audience, the product, visual direction and promotion and distribution. We felt at this stage these were some of the most important aspects of our brief as we hadn't obviously started to design anything. These are all things we'd already identified and understood fully to communicate our initial ideas. They communicate an idea of where we'd like to take our work visually so we are able to get feedback on this in the crit. 

YCN; crit one.

This was the feedback given from our first crit. In this crit we didn't really have anything physical to show as such apart from our blogs and the research we'd began to put together. I found that this crit wasn't very useful in terms of the feedback. This was because it was quite hard to write down feedback people were giving whilst having a discussion about the ideas. It would have probably been more useful for those people to write down the feedback for us. The small amount of feedback we were given however was useful in the sense that we hadn't really considered how we were going to include the actual imaginative colours tool within the exhibition. A point was made that our clients need to be able to interact with it to decide whether or not it would be relevent to their company and their needs. This is something we could definitely go away and think about. 

YCN; Contract.

I found a partner in Charlotte Bourke and felt this would be a good person to work with because it was someone new that I hadn't really worked with before. Once we'd got our partners we had to come up with a contract of what each of our responsabilities would be in terms of the collaboration and these were all things that we'd agreed on. If there was ever any doubt within the collaboration we could always refer back to this contract.